Abstract
This work addresses significant datacenter issues of growth in numbers of computer servers and subsequent electricity expenditure by proposing, analyzing and testing a unique idea of recycling the highest quality waste heat generated by datacenter servers. The aim was to provide a renewable and sustainable energy source for use in cooling the datacenter. The work incorporates novel approaches in waste heat usage, graphing CPU temperature, power and utilization simultaneously, and a mineral oil experimental design and implementation. The work presented investigates and illustrates the quantity and quality of heat that can be captured from a variably tasked liquid-cooled microprocessor on a datacenter server blade. It undertakes a radical approach using mineral oil. The trials examine the feasibility of using the thermal energy from a CPU to drive a cooling process. Results indicate that 123 servers encapsulated in mineral oil can power a 10-ton chiller with a design point of 50.2 kWth. Compared with water-cooling experiments, the mineral oil experiment mitigated the temperature drop between the heat source and discharge line by up to 81%. In addition, due to this reduction in temperature drop, the heat quality in the oil discharge line was up to 12.3 °C higher on average than for water-cooled experiments. Furthermore, mineral oil cooling holds the potential to eliminate the 50% cooling expenditure which initially motivated this project.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 297-303 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Energy Conversion and Management |
Volume | 95 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 1 2015 |
Keywords
- Absorption chiller
- CPU heat, power and temperature simultaneously
- Data center waste heat
- Heat-extraction
- Liquid cooling
- Waste heat reuse
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- Nuclear Energy and Engineering
- Fuel Technology
- Energy Engineering and Power Technology